Air Rescue dips on debut but up comparatively as TV audiences continue to dissipate

Season two of Westpac-funded TV documentary Air Rescue debuted to an audience of 629,000 last night having pulled in 794,000 viewers when it first aired last year.

As a measure of how far audiences have fallen in the last 12 months Air Rescue was the 13th most watched show last night, but only 15th on its second outing on Tuesday, November 12 last year, when it had 858,000 viewers. Last night no show cracked the million viewer mark, compared to seven shows breaking the seven digit barrier last year for overnight metro viewers, OzTam data shows.

Last night Air rescue was beaten by the ABC’s Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell in the 8pm timeslot, which was watched by 741,000 up from last week’s audience of 731,000.

The Chaser’s Media Circus, on the ABC at 8.30pm, also boosted its audience to 746,000 after falling to 638,000 last week, with the show winning its timeslot. The Chaser was the second-most watched show amongst the 18-49 and 25-54 demographics.